FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany risks power supply shortages
if it does not press ahead with more power station projects and
rethink its nuclear exit plan, the chief executive of
southwestern utility company EnBW said on Monday.

"There is a big (generation) gap looming," Hans-Peter
Villis said in an interview with the Handelsblatt business
daily. "The industry is too complacent. That will have to
change."

Planned coal-to-power projects were being cancelled because
operators feared that tougher emissions trading rules, to curb
carbon dioxide emissions from the plants, would add to running
costs, he said.

At the same time, the cost of constructing new power
generation plants had risen by 30 to 40 percent in the last six
months alone amid worldwide demand for more capacity.

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EnBW has plans to build a new coal-fired plant at Karlsruhe
and a hydroelectric plant at Rheinfelden in Germany.

EnBW, which is fighting to keep open its Neckarwestheim 2
reactor beyond 2010, was also convinced nuclear power should
retain an important position in Germany's energy mix, he said.

This would mean altering Germany's national consensus that
all its 17 nuclear plants , which contribute just under a third
of all electricity, should be phased out by 2021.

Villis said Sweden had also gone back on its nuclear exit
programme and he was confident of being able to lobby for a
reversal at home.

He said he had talks scheduled in late February or early
March with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss EnBW's
specific problems. The company is well over a third reliant on
nuclear power and it operations are far from the coast and
major pipelines, which makes coal and gas transport more
difficult.

Importing nuclear power into Germany from France, where its
parent company EDF -- which owns 45 percent of EnBW -- operates
the bulk of all power stations, was a less likely option as
trans-border capacity was not sufficient, he said.